Make a 1.25L 10 brix starter = 125 billion + a smack pack = 225B. Let it ferment, settle, decant, and add it to your wort. Despite your best efforts there will always be a trail of yeast left behind in the flask. Add another 1.25L 10 brix of DME+water to this and BAM 125 billion new cells for your next batch, no smack pack necessary. What looks like a teeny bit of yeast is plenty to ferment the second starter.

For this second "starter", I let it go 3 days on the stirplate, then settle for a 2 days, and put it in the fridge for 2 days to make sure it is crashed. On the day 6 total time I boil 8oz reverse osmosis / distilled water in a jar and store it in the fridge. On day 7, deecant the yeast from the starter, sanitize an 8oz mason jar, pour in your yeast, and top with your chilled boiled water to the top.

I feel like it is a lot purer than "washing" yeast and only requires your starter flask and 8oz ball jars.

I also do this because I am cheap, $8 per smack pack is like 1/3rd the cost of a batch, and you don't even get enough yeast in it!

I love to homebrew but homebrewing is only cheap if your time is free. 2 hours of prep (counting going to the LHBS), 6 hours of brewing, 2-3 hours kegging, bottling, and cleanup. I even prefer doing it solo because I like to geek out about the science of it. Now that I have over $8,000 in equipment

Could I/Should I use something like a 1 Gallon glass jug to make a starter in instead? Would a stir plate/stir bar work in something like that?

The 1 gallon jug I got from my homebrew store doesn't work for starters. The bottoms have a slight curve to them and the stirrer bar gets thrown pretty frequently. If the bottom is flat it will probably work though.

Yeah, and let's not forget about sours. My last batch of Flanders red is basically a Duchesse clone (except not as sweet, which I like better) and that cost about 10% of what it would have retailed for.

That probably goes for any sour you make really.

And good god yes, yeast recycling is key of you don't hate your wallet.

Could you post this recipe? I'd love to be able to brew something even close to Duchesse.

The 1 gallon jug I got from my homebrew store doesn't work for starters. The bottoms have a slight curve to them and the stirrer bar gets thrown pretty frequently. If the bottom is flat it will probably work though.

I've actually used a 1-gallon juice jug with a stir plate with good success. It's a bit more work to get the bar in the middle and spinning, but once it's there i never have it fall off.

You don't actually need the bar spinning full speed: you just need it keeping the yeast in suspension. my post-doc friends in microbi and biochem, who grow yeast for a living, tell me what's important is the "gentle swirling" that's keeping the yeast in suspension and in contact with new food. The idea that the "vortex" of fast spinning is helpful by aerating is wrong. your starter jug/flask should have been aerated and has plenty of surface area contact that they get enough air.

Could you post this recipe? I'd love to be able to brew something even close to Duchesse.

Sure thing! My recipe was mostly based on one from Radical Brewing, but a I made a couple modifications based on what I had on hand. One caveat is that I have no idea what kind of bugs were in it because I grew a whole bunch of lacto from old grain and apple juice for a no-boil Berliner Weisse, which I used the cake of to ferment this beer. If I were to play it safe I would just use US-05 and a bag of lacto (pitched at the same time) and wait a few months, sampling every month and bottling when it's sour enough for you.

Sure thing! My recipe was mostly based on one from Radical Brewing, but a I made a couple modifications based on what I had on hand. One caveat is that I have no idea what kind of bugs were in it because I grew a whole bunch of lacto from old grain and apple juice for a no-boil Berliner Weisse, which I used the cake of to ferment this beer. If I were to play it safe I would just use US-05 and a bag of lacto (pitched at the same time) and wait a few months, sampling every month and bottling when it's sour enough for you.

I finally got around to getting my kegerator fixed up to avoid using picnic taps.

I have to say the Perlick taps are worth every single penny. What a worlds better design than the old faucets. I had a shank hanging around and it is not quite the same length as the new one so the faucets are offset slightly... but .

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Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at Sep 3, 2013 around 00:49

Nice! What's that handle on the left? Looks like mahogany or something?

Burled walnut in desperate need of oiling. My father is going to make a matching one out of wormy American Chestnut and possibly heart pine recovered from my great great grandfather's farmstead. The latter is at the mercy of other projects because I have forbade him from doing so unless he happens to have just the right size scrap piece around.

And if it ends up being rough, I recommend blending. My buddy and I, we've got a solera Gueuze going on that is awesome. It started when we forget 5oz of oak chips in a sour beer (5 gal) we made. One year later, thing was tannic and undrinkable. Just awful. So we blended it with 10 other gallons of beer we had going in a keg. Initially, we used that as an "extract", where we'd blend 1 gallon with 4 gallons of other beer, adding a gallon of beer back in. Then we moved it up to 50/50, which is still the norm. Do that every month. We always had 5 gals of sour, it was awesome. Though occasionally, we'd keg a "grand cru" and add in 5 gals of heat damaged beer (our fridge is cheap and can't always regulate during the heat of summer).

Recently, he traded 8 gallons of our baby to a 50 gallon project our LHBS was running. I was kinda pissed at first because it was a fairly young flanders red and VERY acetic. Eight months later . . . I still wish he had consulted me but the beer is back to being damned tasty.

I know it's probably not as good or fast as a Thermapen, but for the price it seems tempting. One guy in the reviews says he uses it for homebrew, I was just wondering if any of you all had used something similar.

i got a cheap waterproof digital therm, and it broke. Now i have an analog one that clips on the side, but its slow and hard to get an exact read on... plus i proably should check that its actually accurate.

spend some cash and get a good instant one. its my next step and temp is pretty important when you do all grain.

but to answer specifically, i hace not had luck with cheap electronic ones.

I use the real Thermoworks version for both general cooking tasks and for BIAB homebrewing. I like it a lot. It even survived getting submerged for over a day; threw it in a bag of rice for a couple of days, put in a fresh battery, fired right back up.

Well, there's also aroma. And there are some differences which, while not exactly unimportant, you may be able to ignore for now, such as diastatic power (if you want to use any proportion of non-diastatic malts or grains), acidity (for adjusting the pH of your mash), degree of modification (mostly useful for Bohemian lagers) and so on.

I use the real Thermoworks version for both general cooking tasks and for BIAB homebrewing. I like it a lot. It even survived getting submerged for over a day; threw it in a bag of rice for a couple of days, put in a fresh battery, fired right back up.

In fact, the last two I linked are on sale right now ($19 and $25 plus shipping, respectively), so I think I will pick up the 12" one.

If you're at all interested in cooking, just fork over the 100 dollars and buy the good thermapen (even if you get the longer probe thermometer for measuring temps in your fermenters). It's so much faster than the 20 dollar thermaworks one: really "instant" read. I hesitated and just used the cheaper one for 6 months, and then finally gave in and i'm drat glad i did.

Oh, I want to cold crash the yeast out of my mead before racking it onto some gelatin to pull out protein cloud. I don't, however, have access to a fridge or deep freeze that could do the trick for me. Anyone ever done it with ice? How long do I need to crash it?

Sure thing! My recipe was mostly based on one from Radical Brewing, but a I made a couple modifications based on what I had on hand. One caveat is that I have no idea what kind of bugs were in it because I grew a whole bunch of lacto from old grain and apple juice for a no-boil Berliner Weisse, which I used the cake of to ferment this beer. If I were to play it safe I would just use US-05 and a bag of lacto (pitched at the same time) and wait a few months, sampling every month and bottling when it's sour enough for you.

If you're at all interested in cooking, just fork over the 100 dollars and buy the good thermapen (even if you get the longer probe thermometer for measuring temps in your fermenters). It's so much faster than the 20 dollar thermaworks one: really "instant" read. I hesitated and just used the cheaper one for 6 months, and then finally gave in and i'm drat glad i did.

Seriously, thermapens are awesome. I bought mine for brewing but found that I use it all the time in the kitchen. Also their support is great and the few questions I'd e-mailed them before buying were answered nearly instantly.

I went through at least 3 <$20 thermometers that all got ruined by brewing because I didn't want to spend $90 on a thermometer. Now I have a Thermapen and realize that I was dumb not to buy it in the first place. You get what you pay for.

After mulling my options, I decided to give this thermometer a try. The things I considered were cost, durability and alarm functionality. I contacted their customer service before I bought it to see what their idea of "waterproof" was. The probe and the probe wire are entirely waterproof, and the unit itself is water resistant. It also has a magnetic backing, which will be handy for putting it on my brew sculpture...

Which I also just purchased. I have been using a series off cobbled together folding tables and whatnot, but when this piece here I had been watching got marked down from $190 to $127 plus free shipping, I pounced. It has great reviews, and now I don't have to do nearly as much toting around of hot liquids.

I'll keep you guys posted on how they work for me when they arrive.

All I need now is a pump!... Until the next thing I "need" comes along. After all, I don't have a grain mill yet...

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RagingBoner fucked around with this message at Sep 3, 2013 around 14:49

Well, there's also aroma. And there are some differences which, while not exactly unimportant, you may be able to ignore for now, such as diastatic power (if you want to use any proportion of non-diastatic malts or grains), acidity (for adjusting the pH of your mash), degree of modification (mostly useful for Bohemian lagers) and so on.

I guess really broadly speaking they're "just" appearance and flavor, but some other factors could include clarity, mouthfeel, body and head retention. Different malts can contribute dramatically different amounts of each.

Quick question on malts: do the individual kinds affect a beer in any way apart from color and flavor? Because those are the only obvious variables I can see.

You'll also see different PPG numbers for different malts. As I understand it, PPG is the gravity contribution (calculated in points SG) per pound of grain in one gallon of water. So if you manage to get 100% extract efficiency, a grain with a PPG value of 37 will give you one gallon of 1.037 wort.

Got an email from the AHA that John Palmer's new water book is on pre-sale at 40% off for members ($12 vs 20). It's part of the "Brewing Elements" series along with Jamil's yeast book and Stan Hieronymous' recent For the Love of Hops.

At that price I may just impulse buy without waiting for reviews. Hopefully it's less impenetrable than his loving all-grain enzyme analogy in How to Brew.

You tie a chainsaw to a rope and spin it around over your head while running naked through the forest high on angeldust. Eventually the cops arrest you and you spend the rest of your life in a mental institution with no visitation.

CHAPTER 4: HOPS

Anyway, has anyone read Jamil's Yeast book? I keep wanting to pick it up but I keep reading so many mixed reviews about its practicality/usefulness to homebrewers. I'd like a goon review of these points.